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ii 




MIKEY’S 

LETTERS 


TO 


ST. PETER 
















































































































































/ 






COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 















































































































































































































































































MIKEY’S LETTERS 


\ * 



SAINT PETER 






KNIGHT VALE 
K. K. K. KATE CHISM 
TRIAL of the POPE 


Printed in U. S. A. 

By 

Patriot Publishing Co. 


©C1A793994 




JUL 14 1924 



COPYRIGHTED, 1924 
BY THE 

PATRIOT PUBLISHING CO. 
COLUMBUS, OHIO 


Printed in U. S. A. 












CONTENTS 


Chapter Page 


Father Roux Comes. 1 9 

Back in the Fold. 2 18 

Paw Gets a Licking. 3 28 

A Miracle, A Miracle. 4 33 

I Tackle the Saints. 5 38 

Aggie on the War Path. 6 46 

Cannibals . 7 53 

The Show at St. Patrick’s. 8 60 

We Give a Charity Bazaar. 9 69 

A Peck of Bones. 10 78 

‘‘Private’’ . 11 85 

Aggie and His Riverance Mix. 12 91 



















CHAPTER I 


Father Roux Comes 

Most Honorable Saint Peter: 

Vicegerent of God (Deceased)— 

Dear Sir: 

Pm writing to you because Aggie Roony, she’s 
my sister that works at Snyder’s on 4th Street. 
Aggie says, “Git to the boss with your tale of 
woe. Don’t tell it to no ‘would-be.’ He couldn’t 
give you no help if he wanted to, and wouldn’t 
if he could. Git to the boss!” So Pm writing 
to you to put you next to His Riverance, Father 
Roux. Father won’t do. He’d mike his angel 
grandma out of her wing feathers to sell fer 
relics, and if you don’t keep your eye on him, 
he’ll steal your gate receipts from under your 
nose. I don’t know how business is with you 
these hard times, but if you git as much fer let¬ 
ting the dead into heaven as Father Roux does 
fer letting them out of pugatory, your job has 
safe-blowing skinned a mile, and if you don’t 
watch, his Riverance will git into politics and 
first thing you know you’ll be sweeping up trash 


9 



10 Mikey's Letters to Saint Peter 

in the basement instead of taking tickets at the 
main entrance. 

If I wuz yit going to Free School I wouldn’t 
write you no letter because I’d know there 
wuzent no way of getting it to you. But since 
I’ve been to Parochial school I’ve learned 
miracles is easy as rolling off a log and taint no 
harder fer a letter to git up to heaven than fer 
the Virgin to come down to bring scapulars. 

Us Rooney’s wuz having tough enough luck 
when we wuz let alone by Father Roux. After 
he got next to Maw and took us back into the 
fold of the only True Church, we’ve had to pick 
fer our living like jaybirds, and take it from me, 
masses and absolutions and holy water and such 
other religious luxuries as takes the money 
don’t fill the hole under a fellow’s shirt when its 
aching for a square meal. 

I don’t know whether you ever heard of us 
Rooney’s or not. We live on the fourth floor, 
back, in the second tenement from Alderman 
Mulginty’s saloon, which is not called a saloon. 
There’s Maw and Aggie and me and Bridget 
and Timmy and Pat and Kitty and Dennis and 
the baby and poor little Paddy and Nora what’s 
dead. 


Mikf.y’s Letters to Saint Peter 11 

Maw’s the head cheese. Aggie comes next. 
Sometimes Aggie and Maw tie for first place. 
I come next. I’m the one what wuz going to 
Free School and got a flag fer walking like a 
soldier in a drill, one of these here red and white 
striped flags with blue and white stars. I don’t 
know what kind of a flag you folks in Heaven 
flies on your Post-office, but if it beats this here 
“Stars and Stripes” I got, its a dinger. After 
me comes all the rest of us. And then Paw. 
Maw and Paw has a mix-up every Sunday. You 
ought to hear Maw jaw! Monday morning Paw 
hits the trail fer the docks and works all day. 
Then he’s back fer the rest of the week at Mul- 
ginty’s. 

The first time we seen Father Roux Maw wuz 
at the tub. Maw takes in washing. When she 
seen who wuz at the door she cleaned off a chair. 
His Riverence asked if this wuz Rooney’s. Maw 
told him it wuz. He asked if it wuz the home of 
Miss Agnes Rooney what works at Snyder’s. 
Ma wtold him it wuz. Then he come in and the 
little Rooney’s, what wuzent none of them 
dressed fer company, got in behind the stove 
and stared at him. 

The first thing his eye lit on wuz my flag what 
I got in flag drill at Free School. “I’m slavin’ 


12 Mikey's Letters to Saint Peter 

at the tub,” Maw said, “to make Mikey into an 
American citizen. Free Schools is the salvation 
of the poor of us.” 

“Free Schools!” sez Father Roux like he wuz 
mad, “A daughter of the Catholic Church send¬ 
ing her child to Free School! Don’t you know 
its forbidden?” 

“Is it now fer shure?” says Maw. “Well, you 
see I hain’t no good Catholic no more, no more. 
And no confession have I made fer these three 
year and before that my confessions wuzn’t no 
good at all—at all.” 

“Do you know that mortal sin means hell 
fire?” Father Roux said still looking mad. 

“Well,” says Maw, “you see your Riv’rance 
we couldn’t afford religion no more. It wuz 
howly wather or milk. We couldn’t have both 
fer the childer. So I took the milk. It couldn’t 
be masses fer the sowls of thim and shirts fer 
their backs so sez I, ‘It’s shirts may it be,’ I did.” 

“Milk! Shirts! You choose comforts for the 
perishing body and neglect the never dying souls 
of your children. It is ever thus in an infidel 
country. Where Mother Church is at the head 
of affairs the interests of the never dying soul 
are of first consideration. You have grievously 


M i key’s Letters to Saint Peter 18 

sinned. You must make a good confession, re¬ 
ceive absolution, do penance. Then will the 
arms of Mother Church be open to receive you 
back.” 

“And who’s bin tellin’ you I want to git back to 
me owld ways?” says Maw. “Indade and its 
stahayin’ out I’ve decided to do, fer aside from 
the cost of kapin’ up religion I’m savin’ up a sti¬ 
pend to buy a divorce from that plague of a 
Rooney.” 

“Divorce! You a daughter of the Church talk 
of divorce. There is no such thing as divorce, 
and only infidels and heretics believe in it. There 
can be no divorce. The Church decrees it so.” 

“I’m agreein’ with you, there ain’t no such a 
thing, but Mrs. Flarity she got one whin Flarity 
wuz sent to jail and I’m just howlding back me 
own order fer another one like it till I get the 
price. Rooney, the lazy dawg ain’t got no voca¬ 
tion but addin’ to the size of the family and we 
don’t need no more of that with me at the tub 
and the poor little brats howling fer milk and 
bread.” 

“You have a large family?” sez Father Roux 
casting his eye behind the stove.” 

“D’y want me to call thim out and let you 


14 Mi key’s Letters to Saint Peter 


count thim?” says Maw. “Well, there’s a 
plenty. There’s Aggie and Mikey and Bridget 
and Timmy and Pat and Kitty and Dennie and 
the baby.” 

“Pleasing in the sight of Mother Church and 
all the holy saints and angels is a large family,” 
says Father Roux. 

“Mebbe the howly saints and angels likes a 
large family,” Maw said, “but it ain’t none of 
them that’s standin’ over the tub gettin’ shirts 
fer their backs and fillin’ fer their belly. Large 
family’s is fine fer the rich but hard luck fer 
the poor. There’s Timmy has fits and Kitty 
sore eyes and the baby hasn’t never got enough 
strength in his bones to sthand alone. They 
come too fast, your Riv’rance, and its got to be 
sthopped. ‘What’s the use,’ I sez to that owld 
fool Rooney, ‘in bringin’ more into the world to 
shiver and whine fer a time and then die like my 
poor little Paddy and Nora did what’s dead?” 

“You have lost two children?” says Father, 
interested like. 

“Two—poor blessed lambs. They died, they 
did, fer lack of milk and care.” 

“Had they been baptized?” 

“Shure they had, your Rev’rance.” 


Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 15 

“And did you give them a Christian burial?" 

“Faith and the putting of them away wuz the 
hardest blow of im all. It wuz when I wuz in 
bed with Dennie, the seventh of the Rooneys 
what got here when the poor things wuz taken 
away and buried with never so much as a candle 
fer its broke we wuz and not a priest would 
come. Poor things!” 

“Poor things! Well may you say ‘poor things’ 
for with their mother's soul in jeopardy and 
them no Christian burial or consecrated ground 
to sleep in, their souls are suffering in purgatory. 
It is an awful sin, daughter, to bring children 
into the world to people hell. Think of their 
suffering through endless eternity! Pity should 
move a heart of stone to think of the agony of 
these helpless babes!’’ 

“Poor things! Poor things!” said Maw, her 
voice getting husky. 

Then the Holy Father seeing he’s touched a 
soft spot in Maw, settled down to business like a 
fly boring a sore. And he bored and bored talk¬ 
ing about hell fire and innocent babes kicking in 
its red hot flames till he got Maw in tears. Maw 
don’t often come to tears. Mostly she uses her 
fists. But when shoe does get started her tears 
run by the bucketful. 


16 Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 

When Ris Riverence had worked Maw’s first 
tender place dry, he lit a fresh. This time 
it wuz about Aggie he got next to Maw. He 
told her what awful temptations wuz after good 
looking girls like our Aggie and what snares 
wuz set to ketch their innocent feet and how 
bad men wuz after them at every turn in the 
road waiting to carry them off an ruin them. 
He told Maw a girl needed a spiritual adviser 
and when he found out that Aggie hadn’t never 
been to confessional, he said to send her to him 
and she couldn’t get there none too quick. He 
said he’d look after her and see that she wuz 
protected against the villains what wuz watch¬ 
ing for young girls. 

Before he left he had worked Maw into a 
promise to send Aggie to confessional, to take 
me out of Free School and put me in Parochial, 
to put scapulars on the Rooney’s down to the 
last one, and he told her he’d be back next day 
with an image of the Blessed Lady and her 
Spouse and for Maw to have the money ready. 

After he wuz gone Maw counted up what it 
wuz going to cost. It wuz going to take all our 
Christmas money we had saved up, the funds for 
Bridget’s shoes, half the grocery money and 


Mi key's Letters to Saint Peter 


17 


Maw’s insurance she was carrying fer us if she 
shuffled off ahead of time. 

Maw said it would keep our noses to the grind¬ 
stone for a year, but she didn’t want no innocent 
babes of hern sizzling in hell, nor Aggie stole 
into white slavery for want of a few images and 
scapulars and other religious necessities. She 
hoped the devil would get her, tooth and toenail 
if she wuz this unfeeling a mother. 


CHAPTER II 
Back in the Fold 

When Father Roux come next day with the 
Blessed Virgin Mary under one arm and her 
Spouse under the other, he squinted in, anxious 
like, and asked if Aggie wuz home yet. Maw 
told him Aggie wouldn’t be in till after dark. 
He shook his head and said he was anxious about 
her soul and told Maw to hurry her up to con¬ 
fession. I haint figgured out why my soul aint 
worth as much as Aggie’s, but the Holy Father 
didn’t give me no pressing invitation to meet 
him in confession. He set the Virgin and her 
Spouse in a chair and looked to see if they wuz 
alright. The man image wuz suffering from a 
crack on the head. Father Roux said a small 
thing like a cracked head when it was across 
the back where nobod’y know it, didn’t matter, 
and he fixed to put them on the shelf. 

“We’ll take this here down,” he says, reach¬ 
ing after my red and blue stars and stripes. 

“What fer must the flag come down?” says 
Maw; “Mikey sets a heap of store by that glad 
rag.” 

“It gives a wrong impression,” says the Holy 


18 


Mi key’s Letters to Saint Peter 19 


Father. “Catholic homes must have their signs 
and symbols. Saint Joseph here is the patron 
of the Universal Church. He will bring you 
luck.” 

“Say, Father—says Maw, “let Saint 
Joseph hold the flag. That’ll be a good way to 
keep them both.” 

“Saint Joseph hold the American Flag?” 
says he quite amazed like. “Not yet will Saint 
Joseph hold this flag. We’re making America 
Catholic as fast as the law allows. When His 
Holiness the Pope is recognized as head of this 
heretical nation then will it be time to hoist up 
this emblem of civil government” and at this he 
took the flag. 

“George Washington thought it wuz good 
enough to carry” said I to the Father. 

“George Washington was no Saint,” he says. 
“Joseph here is the Spouse of the Blessed Virgin 
Mary.” 

“But Washington was the Father of his Coun¬ 
try. Ain’t it just as much a man’s job to be 
father of his country as to be spouse to a Vir¬ 
gin—whatever that is?” 

“Silence you heathen!” Father Roux said. 
“George Washington was not even a Catholic. 
He wuz a heretic and a free-mason. Get George 


20 Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 

Washington out of your head and learn this 
prayer. Keep your ears open now,” and he got 
in front of the Spouse with his cracked head and 
said: “Remember, 0 most pure Spouse of the 
Blessed Virgin Mary, my sweet Protector, St. 
Joseph, that no one has ever had recourse to thy 
protection or implored thy aid without obtain¬ 
ing relief. Confiding in thy goodness, I come to 
thee and humbly supplicate thee. Despise not 
my petitions, 0 foster father of the Redeemer, 
but graciously hear them, Amen.” 

Then he got in front of the Virgin, who was 
wrapped up in a long, red paint cloak, crossed 
himself and said: 

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sin¬ 
ners now and in the hour of our death, Amen... 
Blessed be the holy and immaculate to concep¬ 
tion of the most blessed Virgin Mary.” 

After this he crossed himself again and told 
Maw to keep us Rooneys saying these prayers 
on account of the indulgences it would git us. 

“What’s an indulgence?” says I. 

“Indulgences is to shorten your stay in Pur¬ 
gatory. Every time you say a prayer or go to 
mass or give offerings takes off a few days. 
These here prayers you heard me say takes off 
three hundred days of your stay in Purgatory?’ 


Mi key's Letters to Saint Peter 21 


“How long does a fellow have to stay in Pur¬ 
gatory?” 

“That’s according to one’s sins on earth and 
the amount of praying you do and money you 
give for good works.” 

“Who keeps account of these here indulgences 
so’s a fellow don’t keep on a praying after he’s 
prayed enough. Here’s this bunch of us Rooneys 
can all be praying at once. That’ll be three 
thousand days off at a crack. By all of us say¬ 
ing these here prayers a dozen times a day we 
pray off three or four years a month. Who 
keeps the books on this here Purgatory deal ? 

“You talk like a fool,” says His Riverence, 
“one of them fools the Free Schools turns out. 
They make it a part of their teaching to ask 
questions. We teach our pupils to obey, never 
to question.” Then to Maw he says, “Get your 
Rooneys lined up so I can see if I’ve got scapu¬ 
lars enough.” 

“What’s a scapular?” I says, meek and polite 
like. 

“Don’t these here children know nothing?” 
says Father to Maw. “Didn’t you tell them about 
these here scapulars?” 

“No, your Riv’rence,” Maw says, “You see I 
done forgot which is which ’mongst the scapu- 


22 Mi key’s Letters to Saint Peter 

lars—the more shame to me. ‘So/ says I, ‘the 
childer shall learn from the mouth of the Howly 
Father himself about these sacred charms. And 
now here they be, and if one of them bats an 
eye, you Riv’rence while you’re having spach 
is by me own hand I’ll tan the daylights out of 
them. Proceed now, your Riv-rence and let’s 
get the poor brats back into the fowld of Mother 
Church so I can git back to me washin’, else there 
won’t be no pay for all this here.” 

Then Maw began pulling the Rooneys out 
from behind the stove, and when they wuz lined 
up she says, “Now sthand still, you wigglin’ 
worms, and hear what the Howly Father has to 
say about these howly scapulars what’s going to 
be tied onto you.” 

Father Roux was getting his book. It wuz 
black with a gold cross on the lid. He read from 
it like this: 

“The Blessed Virgin appeared in a vision to 
Blessed Simon Stock, General of the Carmelites, 
and gave him a scapular. She declared the 
scapular should be a pledge of salvation, a safe¬ 
guard in danger, and that those who die wearing 
the scapular should not burn in the flames of 
hell. The Church perpetuates the memory of 
this event by the feast of Our Lady of Mount 


Miket’s Letters to Saint Peter 23 

Carmel, celebrated July 16. To share in the 
benefits and indulgences attached to the scapu¬ 
lar, you must be invested by a duly authorized 
priest and wear the scapular devotedly. . .You 
must preserve chastity according to your state 
in life and recite daily the Breviary of the Little 
Office of the Blessed Virgin or at least recite 
the prayer or perform the good works enjoined 
by a duly authorized priest. It is a pious belief 
that those who faithfully observe these rules 
and die wearing the scapular will be freed from 
purgatory on the Saturday following their 
death.” 

“Howly Mary, have mercy on the sowls of 
poor Paddy and Nora,” groaned Maw. “The 
poor darlins yet tortured in purgatory when 
they might have been out the next Saturday if 
they’d had the protection of the blessed scapular 
of our Blessed Lady,” and Maw began to heave. 

“Don’t get no sob-show started,” I says to 
Maw. “This here thing’s easy. We Rooneys 
what’s alive will wear our scapulars and the 
whole bunch of us will come walking out of 
purgy the Saturday after we get in not even 
scorched. And between the time we shuffle off 
and this here time we’ll say enough prayers to 


24 Mikey's Letters to Saint Peter 

them images on the shelf to get Paddy and Nora 
out and some left over.” 

“Don’t lose no time getting that boy into 
Parochial school,” says Father Roux. “He don’t 
know the first beginning of reverence.” 

“It’s tomorrow he’ll be starting,” says Maw. 
Then the Holy Father began blessing the scapu¬ 
lars and handing them out. 

“These is brown,” says Maw. “Mine used to 
be red.” 

“These are the scapulars of Our Lady of 
Mount Carmel,” says Father Roux. “The Red 
Scapular is the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the 
Immaculate Heart of Mary. The White Scapu¬ 
lar is the Most Holy Trinity. The Blue Scapular 
is the Scapular of the Immaculte Conception and 
the Black Scapular is the Scapular of Our Lady 
of Sorrows. She wore a black habit when she 
appeared to the seven noble Florentines and 
commanded them to wear a black habit in mem¬ 
ory of her dolors. The Holy Mother Church has 
scapulars of all kinds, all bringing blessings 
when piously worn.” 

“Gee whizz!” I says, “brown—red—white— 
blue—black—who knew the Virgin had so many 
dresses? She must have took a trunk full when 
she went to heaven!’ 


Mi key’s Letters to Saint Peter 25 


“Shut up your mouth,” Maw says to me with 
her eyes glued on His Riverence who looked mad 
enough to bite. “What business is it of yourn 
whether the Blessed Lady had five robes or 
never a shirt to her back? Keep your trap 
shut.” 

Father Roux wuz getting out the scapulars 
now—bits of brown cloth on a string and they 
wuz hung around the Rooneys necks. The last 
to get his protection wuz the baby. He’s crawled 
into the coal box while the others wuz getting 
rigged up and was gnawing a hunk of coal when 
Maw grabbed him out. 

“Come here, you nigger,” she says. “Don’t 
let this here one git left. This here one needs 
protection the most. In a tenement with stairs 
steep as a ladder and black as pitch it’s the devil 
of a time a poor brat has when he takes a tum¬ 
ble. Mary McGinty’s poor lamb—save the 
pieces—fell down two flights leavin’ the skin of 
his head along the way and winding up at the 
finish by cutting his left ear half off and knock¬ 
ing two teeth down his throat. His howls was 
fearful and Mary was that mad she walloped the 
poor lamb half to death. I want protection fer 
this here one.” 

“You know the value of the blessed scapular,” 


26 Mikf.y’s Letters to Saint Peter 

said his Reverence, “It’ll keep your child from 
creeping to the stairs. But if he should go to 
the stairs he won’t fall. If he should fall he 
won’t fall far. If he should roll to the bottom 
he won’t break no bones. If he should break one 
bone, he won’t break all of them. If he should 
break all of them it won’t kill him. If it should 
kill him he’ll go in peace to the bosom of our 
Blessed Lady.” 

“God be praised,” said Maw. “Scapulars is 
wonders.” 

After all us Rooneys was decorated with our 
strings with pieces of the Blessed Virgin’s 
brown coat on them, it wuz time to pay. We 
scraped up every cent with part of the rent and 
the price of our Sunday dinner caused Father 
Roux didn’t make no reduction for the crack in 
Saint Joseph’s head. When I seen the Sunday 
stew money going into the pocket of the Holy 
Father I asked him if he couldn’t put a bit more 
string on my charm. 

“What for?” says he. 

“So it’ll hang down over that place what’s 
going to be full of soup instead of stew on Sun¬ 
day and bless it into feeling like its full of meat,” 
I says. 

“Has that boy got good sense?” he asked Maw. 


Mi kf.y’s Letters to Saint Peter 27 

“It’s no lack of sense that’s ailing the young 
goat,” says Maw. “His wits is as good as they 
make. He got here, you see, before the Rooneys 
wuz going to seed. Mikey’s a bright boy, he is, 
your Riv’rence.” 

“Then its penance he needs.” 

“And what’s penance?” I says. 

“There you go again asking questions,” he 
says. “You’ll find out what penance is. An’ 
you,” he says to Maw, “must get some Holy 
Water and later a relic. Then he made the sign 
of the cross and we wuz back in the fold.” 


CHAPTER III 
Paw Gets a Licking 

Saint Peter, 

Your Holiness: 

I don’t know whether your maw and paw ever 
mixed nor who whipped. Maybe your paw never 
set around Mulginty’s and deviled the life out of 
your maw when he come home, like my Paw does 
my Maw. Maybe when the Holy Father told 
your maw your paw wuz head of the family 
she’s let him walk all over her cause marriage is 
a holy sacrament. 

But my Maw’s not built on that model, and 
last night she just naturally and eternally layed 
Paw out. 

After we got to spending money for images 
and scapulars and holy water and masses and 
other things to make us religious, we haint had 
nothing else and Paw has been doing the same 
old way, only worse, and spending all his money 
at Mulginty’s. 

Saturday night he come home whizzed. It 
took him half an hour to climb the stairs. His 
legs worked like corkscrews and you ought to 
have seen him when he come twisting in. 


28 


Mi key’s Letters to Saint Peter 29 


Paw has whiskers. Not the long, wavy kind 
like Saint Joseph, but the kind that looks like un¬ 
derbrush which has been used to mop up some¬ 
thing. Paw had beer froth on his whiskers and 
smelled like a garbage can on the Fourth of 
July. He grinned at Maw when he come in and 
waving his hat said, “The top of the mornin’ to 
you, Jinny, me love!” Then he fell onto the bed 
and next thing Maw heard something splash. 
When she seen it wuz Paw messing her clean 
floor all up, she wuz mad. 

Paw is some size and has a shape around the 
middle like Father Roux. Up toward the top 
Paw’s neck branches into a head with a back to 
it. Father Roux’s neck runs into his head with¬ 
out no side stations and rounds off like a sugar 
bowl. After Paw spoiled the floor he got busy 
snoring and dribbling a little. Maw set looking 
at him. 

I knew there wasn’t going to be no love lost. 
Maw’s a self-starter and when she gets jawing 
she tells Paw where to head in and he does it. 
She didn’t jaw none tonight. She just set look¬ 
ing and looking at Paw. 

Then she says, “Timmy, my son, go down 
to the next floor to Mrs. Smithkin what sews 
awnings and borrow fer your mother a big 


30 Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 

needle and a few threads of strong twine.” And 
to me she says, “Michael, my son, jist step acrost 
the hall to Mary McGraw and borrow a bedslat 
or two and don’t you git none that’s unsound or 
weakly.” 

I did as Maw said. Timmy did the same. When 
I got back with by bedslat and Timmy with his 
twine, Maw had Paw straightened out on the 
bed with a double blanket rolled around him. 

“Gimme a needleful of thread,” says Maw, 
and she began sewing Paw up and him with his 
legs and arms by his side as straight and decent 
as if he wuz fixed for purgy. Paw he smiled 
sweet as a little girl angel and snored and slob¬ 
bered. Maw didn’t say nothing till she got him 
all sewed up. Then she says “Michael, me son, 
lend a hand. Help to roll the old cuttle-fish 
over.” 

“But what will His Riverence say?” I asked 
Maw. “Paw’s the head of the family and mar¬ 
riage is a holy institution.” 

“And what good will it do fer him to say at 
all? A head that ain’t no use but to pour booze 
in and hang a hat on ain’t no good head for a 
family of ten, Pm tellin’ ye. If the Holy Father 
would let me buy a divorce I’d be rid of the pest. 
But if marriage is a howly institution and can’t 




Mikey's Letters to Saint Peter 31 

never be broken, then by all the saints I’ll have 
satisfaction in me own way. It’s two-thirds 
goat your fawther is, Michael, my son, and the 
other two-thirds is fool. Tain’t no use to try 
gittin’ the goat out of him. It’s a part of him, 
like them ratty whiskers and his unhowly appe¬ 
tites. But I’m going to beat the fool out of him. 
Gimme that bedslat now.” 

With this Maw took the slat and began to lay 
on. The smile faded from Paw’s boozy coun¬ 
tenance and he jerked like a jumping-jack when 
you pull the string. Then she gave him another 
crack, and another, laying the slat square across 
that part of Paw’s back portion that he sets on 
through the week at Mulginty’s. Paw tried to 
get his hands down to that portion to see what 
wuz working on him. Then he tried to kick. 
But twan’t no use. By this time he wuz getting 
sobered up fast and Maw was helping at it. Once 
she stopped to get a drink and roll up her 
sleeves. Then she went at Paw again. He tried 
to cuss, but Maw soon put a stop to this. Then 
he told her he’d have her arrested. She gave 
him three whacks when he said this and says, 
“You are, are you? You better do it first, you 
blathering idiot and tell about it afterwards,” 
and she spanked a few more turns. 


32 Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 


Then Paw got crying and begging and pray¬ 
ing to the Holy Virgin and calling on all the 
saints and the Spouse on our shelf. At last Maw 
asked Paw if he wuz ready to quit his boozing. 
He told her if she’d rub some grease on the back 
of him and git him a walkin’ stick he’d start out 
right then and vote the Prohibition ticket. 

Next day Paw wanted to stay in bed but Maw 
said there wasn’t nothing doing in this line so 
she told him to hustle hisself over to the docks 
and see if he couldn’t earn enongh honest cop¬ 
pers to buy a few buckets of coal. Paw walked 
like he needed a few drops of machine oil on his 
joints when he set out, but Maw said he’d limber 
up time he’d unloaded a half-dozen trucks of 
freight. 

After he wuz gone Maw did some more jawing 
about Paw and said if matrimony wasn’t such a 
dickens of a howly institution she’d lock Paw 
out and he could get his rations out of the bread 
line and sleep in the park. But Father Roux 
keeps saying marriage is a holy institution and 
can’t be nothing else cause the Church says so. 
So I suppose Paw’ll have to take what’s coming 
to him as long as Maw stays a good Catholic. 



CHAPTER IV 
A Miracle! A Miracle! 

We hadn’t more than got our Rooneys scapu- 
lared when we had to get that holy water Father 
Roux was talking about. He wanted Maw to 
buy five dollars worth. He said on account of 
the size of the family it would take an extra 
amount. 

Maw told the Holy Father she hadn’t seen five 
dollars in one chunk since she got back into the 
fold. She tried to talk him into selling a dol¬ 
lar’s worth, but he finally eased her out of three 
dollare and we put the holy water the Holy 
Father gave us up on the shelf between the Holy 
Virgin and her Holy Spouse and Maw warned 
the Rooneys to let it alone or she’d doctor them 
with the shillalah. 

Nobody knows who done it, but somebody 
took the lid oif the pail. Maw says she knows 
for a certainty it was Paw cause buckets is his 
weakness. Besides there was a swig or two 
gone out of the holy water and a wet spot behind 
the stove where nothing don’t leak and Maw said 
Paw done this and wuz so mad cause the pail 
fooled him he wouldn’t cover it up. Anyhow 


33 


84 Mikey's Letters to Saint Peter 

somebody done it and a measly little rat fell into 
what wuz left and drowned hisself. 

Nobody noticed this till at night when Tommie 
got wheezing and choking and Maw went after 
the water. She give a screech when she saw the 
rat and says, “Howly Moses and the Saints! Its 
sphoiled the howly water is by this dirty baste 
of a rat and Tommy wheezin’ the lungs out of his 
body and no money to fetch a doctor. Bad luck 
and the devil get Rooney!” and Maw stood look¬ 
ing into the bucket and growling. 

She wuz in an awful undone fix but I says, 
“Holy water’s holy water. What’s good for men 
wont hurt rats. If a few drops of this here 
water sprinkled on a human can purify him up, 
a rat what’s soaked in it ought to be cleaned up 
so’s he wont hurt nothing. That’s a sanctified 
rat, peace to his ashes. Gimme a fork and I’ll 
fish him out and then you just sprinkle Timmy 
and don’t lose no time. He’s wheezing worse 
than a fire engine working overtime.” 

Maw looked into the water after the rat come 
out and says, “I don’t see no signs of it being 
hurt. Anyhow its this or nothin’ fer the price 
of a doctor’s done gone into it, but I wish to me 
sowl I’d got a bone of the toe of the howly Saint 
Joseph instead.” 


Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 35 


“Bone of a toe?” I says. “Bone of a toe?” 

“Yes,” Maw answered, “His Riv’rence says 
there aint nothing so good, Saints’ bones comes 
high, but they’re more endurin’ than howly 
water and rats can’t fall in and drownd.” 

“But they can eat them,” I says. 

“We kin kape a bone in a glass jar with the top 
tight down and t’wont be no temptation to that 
pest of a Rooney.” 

While Maw was saying this she’s been sprink¬ 
ling Timmy. The water wuz cold and Timmy 
jumped nearly off the bed when the first drops 
hit him in the eyes. He started to cry but the 
cry was choked off by a fit of coughing and he 
coughed and struggled till Maw wuz so sure he 
wuz dying she turned white to the ears. 

“What’s the use putting this water on the out¬ 
sides of him?” I says to Maw. “It’s his insides 
what’s making all this row. Let’s get some of 
this holy water onto the place what’s ailing.” 

“Mikey my son,” says Maw, “you’ve a long 
head, fer a fact. Come on with yer howly water 
in a cup this time.” 

We gave Timmy half a cup full. He wuz 
choking so hard we held his nose and poured 
it down him. It wuz terrible the way he wuz 
choking to death. But no sooner had that blessed 


36 Mikey's Letters to Saint Peter 

holy water touched the insides of him than he 
began heaving like a East River tug towing a 
coal barge. Then up came the holy water bring¬ 
ing everything with it. Maw says she never 
seen anything like the way Timmy throwed up 
amongst his supplys being a tin thimble what 
come up missing two weeks ago. When he got 
hisself cleaned out he wasn’t choking no more, 
but just settled back peacefully as a warm cat 
and fell asleep. Maw said she never seen a cure 
so quick. She says, “Michael, me son, call Mary 
McGraw.” 

Then Mary McGraw crossed herself in front 
of the Blessed Virgin and went out to call the 
neighbors to see with their own eyes that Timmy 
Rooney wuz chokin’ to death wuz cured with 
never a doctor nor drop of medicine. Grandad 
McGraw with his leg warped for three years, 
and old Mrs. Quiggle deaf in both ears and blind 
in one eye was among them that came in to take 
a look. Grandad McGraw said he’d have some 
of that same kind of holy water if it took the 
coat from his back to pay the price and old lady 
Quiggle said she wuz going to take the money 
her son give her for a new shawl and get her 
some holy water to unstop her deaf ears and get 
back her bad eye. 


Mikf.y's Letters to Saint Peter 37 


Next day the neighbors set out to where 
Father Roux lives with bottles and jugs and 
buckets and I bet he sold a barrel of holy water 
and last Sunday he told about the miracle at ten 
o’clock mass. Folks stared like they didn’t be¬ 
lieve it but Timmy wuz there with Maw and 
when they all heard how near dead he wuz and 
seen him standing there alive and grinning, they 
wuz convinced. I suppose His Reverence will 
do a business in holy water that will make Mul- 
ginty look pale until all the cripples and sore¬ 
eyed in this part of town are cured up. 


CHAPTER V 
I Tackle the Saints 

Saint Peter, 

Holy Eminence: 

When you wuz a kid did you go to Free School, 
or Parochial? Maybe both like me. But say, 
aint there a bushel of difference in the two sorts 
of schools? 

Miss Hattie, my teacher over at Free School, 
she wuz just a nice lady with clothes on like real 
people wears. She had beads on her neck some¬ 
times but she didn’t use them to say her prayers 
on. 

My teachers at Parochial is named Sister 
Agatha and Sister Clementina Carmel. They 
wear black clothes with big white collars all 
around their necks and heads and widder’s veils. 
Their beads hangs down one side and is used to 
say prayers on. 

You don’t call them “Miss Agatha,” nor “Miss 
Clementina Carmel” like they wuz live people. 
You call them “Sister” and say it like you wuz 
talking to God. This is cause these kind of teach¬ 
ers has taken holy orders. Men and women both 
takes holy orders in the One True Church. When 


38 


Mi key's Letters to Saint Peter 39 

a man gets his he can wear women’s clothes and 
turn bread into flesh and forgive sins on earth 
and hear confessions. He’s a Priest when he 
gets his. 

When the ladies gets theirs they can’t wear 
men’s clothes nor turn bread into anything nor 
forgive no sins nor hear no confessions. I don’t 
know who thought out the holy order plan but 
whoever it was give the women a punk deal. 
They don’t get no show no sort of way. Their 
clothes is black and nothing to brag on for style. 
They don’t never keep company with men they 
don’t get no pay for working. Looks like if a 
few of them could be put at hearing confessions 
the men would go to confession more. Father 
Roux says its a sin the way men neglect the con¬ 
fession, and he ought to know. He’s been after 
our Aggie since he first seen her but he don’t 
say nothing to me about coming. But the ladies 
what takes orders gets the small end of the deal. 
Nobody what takes holy orders can marry. If 
everybody wuz to get religious and take holy or¬ 
ders the Paw and Maw business would be ruined 
and there wouldn’t be no more babies but them 
poor little rascals that’s left in orphanages. I aint 
saying nothing about holy orders though, nor 
Holy Fathers nor Holy Sisters. Sister Agatha 


40 Mikey^s Letters to Saint Peter 

and Sister Clementina Carmel both taught me 
first thing that the word of a priest and a sister 
must never be questioned or disputed. I asked 
her if I couldn’t say nothing if they wasn’t tell¬ 
ing the truth. Sister Clemintina Carmel says 
after holy orders its impossible to tell an un¬ 
truth. Sister Agatha says, “Don’t ask ques¬ 
tions. Obey. Obey. Obey. That’s the way to 
become a good Catholic!” 

Miss Hattie used to make us mind, but what 
she said most wuz this, “Think, Mikey, think. 
That’s the way to become a good American citi¬ 
zen. Think for yourself, Mikey. What’s the use of 
having a brain if you never use it.” Miss Hattie 
didn’t know how to say prayers on beads. If 
she did she’d know you don’t have to think. 

At the Free School the boss man has to behave 
hisself or the Board what give him his job gets a 
new man. I heard Miss Hattie and another 
teacher talking one day about a boss what wuz 
there once what got too smart with one of the 
lady teachers. He got fired. 

The Parochial has a boss too. He’s the Priest. 
Father Roux is the boss of my Parochial. The 
Parochial boss has it all over the Free School 
boss man. Nobody can fire him. There ain’t 
no Board to monkey with his business. He 


Mikey's Letters to Saint Peter 41 

hires hisself and naturally enough when he gets 
onto a good thing like a Parochial, he ain’t going 
to fire hisself out. Teachers in the Free School 
gets pay for teaching. But the Sisters don’t get 
no pay. The Holy Church gets it all. This is 
where the Parochial has it on the Free School 
again. 

They don’t teach the same things neither. Sis¬ 
ter Agatha and Sister Clementina Carmel is 
working on me right now to get me ready to die. 
I’ve got a prayer to Saint Barbara, a virgin and 
a martyr that comes to the rescue in the last 
hour. Then there’s another prayer with a pre¬ 
amble like the Constitution had what Miss Hat¬ 
tie used to each me. This here preamble states 
that my heart is humble and full of compunc¬ 
tion. I don’t know what compunction is. I 
suppose its the disease that’s taking me off. Any¬ 
how my heart’s full of it and I’m praying my 
last prayer. It begins with my trembling and 
benumbed hands, moves up to my dim and dis¬ 
torted eyes, mentions my pale cheeks which 
strikes the bystander with awe and compassion, 
has a word about my hair which is wet with the 
sweat of death that strikes me in the last hour. 
The ears are spoken about in this last prayer 
that hear terrible noises and it tells about imagi- 


42 Mikey^s Letters to Saint Peter 

nations torturned by horrible spectres and how 
I shall wrestle with the powers of darkness that 
will strive in my dying moments to cast me head¬ 
long into the pit of despair, and the goblins that 
will be standing with their pitchforks ready to 
chuck me into the furnace when I shuffle off. 
There's a lot of it and I have to learn it by heart. 
Then there's the last sighs of the dying I have 
to learn. It starts out, “I die in the Holy Roman 
Catholic Church. I believe all that the Holy 
Church believes and teaches." Sister Agatha 
says its important to say this with your last 
breath or there might be some mistake about 
whether you wuz a Catholic and none others 
need apply. 

Miss Hattie didn’t spend no time teaching us 
to die. She wuz always talking about getting 
us ready to live. She read us something one 
day about death, a poet said it. He said there 
aint no sure enough, hell fire, death. What men 
call death is just a name for changing into an¬ 
other kind of creature just like worms shed their 
ugly skins and turn into butterflies. Miss Hattie 
says we humans has been a long time growing 
into the kind we are. She says we've been lots 
of different sorts of things before we got to be 
the fine animals we are now and its likely we'll 


Mi key's Letters to Saint Peter 43 

be changing some more before God gets us made 
as fine as he wants us. She says death aint noth¬ 
ing to get scared of and she read about a man 
that said when his time come to shuffle off he 
wuz going to wrap his coat around himself and 
lie down like a man instead of being whipped 
like a galley slave. But he wouldn’t be no good 
Catholic. Catholics has to be scared into fits 
about death. If there wasn’t no scare there 
wouldn’t be no way of working the rabbit foot. 
The only reason Maw took me out of Free School 
is cause His Riverence scared her about Paddy 
and Nora and hell fire. The only reason she’s 
taking the stew out of the pot and covers off the 
bed in cold weather is because the Holy Father’s 
got her scared of torments that follows death. 
Now they’re teaching it to me. I told Sister Clem¬ 
entina Carmel that Miss Hattie said ’twasn’t 
any use to get scared of death—that we had 
come up along the line and wuz going on to bet¬ 
ter things and the changin’ wasn’t painful. She 
said such ideas wuz ungodly and infidel. Only 
the Holy Catholic Church knew what wuz what 
when it come to death and purgatory and hell. 
She told me to forget every word Miss Hattie 
had ever said and think about the Blessed Virgin 
and the Saints and she gave me about a thou- 


44 


Mikey j s Letters to Saint Peter 


sand Saints’ names to learn by heart. She said 
it would train my memory. 

Miss Hattie used to make me learn the multi¬ 
plication table to strengthen my memory. She 
said it would be useful later cause I could turn it 
into dollars and cents. But Sister Clementina 
Carmel don’t know nothing about dollars and 
cents. She haint got no use for them. So she 
set me at the Litany of the Saints. Here’s some 
of them: 

St. Stephen. 

St. Laurence. 

St. Vincent. 

Sts. Fabian and Sebastian. 

St. Cosmas and Damian. 

Sts. Gervasius and Protarius. 

All ye holy Martyrs. 

St. Sylvester. 

St. Gregory. 

St. Ambrose. 

St. Augustine. 

St. Dominic. 

St. Bernard. 

St. Nicholas. 

All ye holy Monks and Hermits. 

St. Mary Magdaline. 

St. Lucy. 


Mi key's Letters to Saint Peter 45 

St. Cecelia. 

St. Catherine. 

St. Agatha. 

St. Anastasia. 

All ye holy Virgins and Widows. 

This here is the way it starts. You say the 
saints’ names till your tongue gets tied and then 
you change the tune long enough to say “Pray 
for us.” Then you start in again on the names. 
Sister Clementina Carmel says its good training. 
She and Sister Agatha both says if I tackle the 
Saints and get away with them and learn the 
prayers I’ll get a fine bunch of indulgences and 
like enough live to be a Knight of Columbus and 
carry a gun for His Holiness and the glory of 
Mother Church. 

Miss Hattie never promised nothing like this. 
The best she done wuz to say I’d make a good 
American citizen if I kept on like I wuz going. 


CHAPTER VI 
Aggie on the War Path 

Most Howly Saint Peter: 

I don’t know whether you know much about 
women. As the first one of the infallible Popes 
you got it from God straight that you wuz slated 
to be an old bachelor—leastways so far as folks 
knows. Its been some time since you wuz a 
young priest living amongst us live ones down 
here and maybe you’ve forgot how young girls 
acted that come to your confessional for spirit¬ 
ual help and whether any of them kicked up a 
row. Maybe there wasn’t no girls in your day 
like our Aggie. Aggie she’s some holy terror 
when she gets riled and Father Roux has done 
something that’s got her stirred up to fighting 
pitch. When Aggie gets to fighting pitch the 
best thing to do is to let her alone. 

But let me tell. Maw had to work on Aggie 
the longest before she got her to confessional. 
Aggie’s got a beau, Big Blue what’s head of the 
police crew in the 14th street district. He’s 
smitten awful bad with our Aggie. He brings 
her home when she has to work overtime and 


46 


Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 47 

don’t let no other fellow take her to no shows 
nor nothing. Aggie said she didn’t know noth¬ 
ing about confessional but she didn’t think much 
of getting into any small box with any strange 
man to tell him any tale of woe. 

Maw told Aggie Father Roux wasn’t no 
strange man. He was a Priest. 

“Maybe so,” says Aggie, “maybe so he’s a 
Priest, but I bet he’s a man at the same time, 
and a man’s a man and a small box aint no place 
for a decent girl to be caught in with a man, and 
Big Blue he wouldn’t stand for it.” 

“But Aggie, me love,” says Maw, “the howly 
Praste is not like other men no more. He’s 
taken howly orders, he has, and them dirty 
things what other men is always at don’t come to 
his mind no more. And the box darlin’ has two 
sides. And you stay on the one side and the 
Holy Father on the other. Its spiritual solace 
he’ll be after givin’ you and what could yer heart 
more desire?” 

“I’d rather have a raise of a dollar a week 
than all the spiritual solace he’s got in stock,” 
says Aggie. “Beside I’ll bet he’s a grafter.” 

Maw told her a Holy Father couldn’t be a 
grafter and she worked on Aggie some more. 
But Aggie said she wasn’t going until after 


48 Mikey's Letters to Saint Peter 

Christmas. She had been saving her money four 
months and had ten dollars to buy a dress and a 
dollar to buy Big Blue a necktie pin. Aggie said 
two of the girls at Snyders went to confession 
and got miked. One of them had eight dollars 
saved to buy a coat. Father Roux told her she 
ought to make a Christmas offering to Holy 
Mother Church so as to get an indulgence for 
her mother and get her out of purgatory. The 
girl’s maw had been suffering in purgatory a 
year. His Riverance told the girl if she’d give 
this eight dollars to the Church for the poor, it 
would get her maw out of her misery by Easter. 
He said the usual price was twenty-five dollars 
and he just made this special offer to her cause 
he wuz a friend of poor working girls. This 
girl wuz half Jew and half Catholic. The Catho¬ 
lic in her wanted to get her maw out of Purga¬ 
tory. The Jew in her wanted to get twenty- 
five dollars worth of something for eight dol¬ 
lars. So she bit. She’s wearing her old coat 
another winter. Aggie says its a disgrace to 
civilization. The other girl had a little sum 
saved up to give her sister what’s sick with con¬ 
sumption a week’s vacation. Father Roux told 
her about our miracle and separated her from 
her coin for holy water and the first payment on 


Mi key’s Letters to Saint Peter 49 

a toe-bone of St. Joseph. That’s two of St. 
Joseph’s bones that’s coming to New York. This 
here old town surely will have luck. 

But let me get back to Aggie. Maw finally hit 
the trail to Aggie’s soft spot. She told Aggie if 
she would go to confessional and do just what 
Father Roux said we’d soon be able to get Paddy 
and Nora out of Purgatory, and soon as they 
wuz safely landed in heaven she wuz going to 
cut out spending so much for religion and buy 
some new furniture so’s Aggie could have a 
place where Big Blue could come to court her. 
This got Aggie and she promised to go to con¬ 
fession the next Saturday. 

All this time the Holy Father had been right 
after Maw on account of Aggie’s immortal soul 
and for fear some fiend of a man would get 
his vile clutches on her. 

V/hen Aggie come home from confession she 
wuz mad—this here blowed up sizzing over kind 
of mad. Aggie’s eyes are blue. But when she 
gets mad enough they turn green and look fiery. 

“Have you been to confessional?” says Maw. 

“Call it that if you want to,” says Aggie and 
she threw something across the room that hit 
the sugar bowl and set it leaking on the floor. 


50 Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 

What she throwed wuz a little black book with 
a gold cross on the lid. 

“Howly Moses!” exclaimed Maw taking her 
hands from the tub and letting water drip from 
both of them. “Timmy get a spoon and go after 
the sugar—and you, Aggie, darlin’—did His 
Riv’rence put a blessin’ on you?” 

“Blessing?” says Aggie jerking off her coat 
and pitching it on the bed. “Blessing? Sure, 
and it wasn’t no blessing the low-lived son of a 
blackguard put on me, it wuz his dirty hands. 
Do you get me?” 

Maw stared a minute. Then she says, “Well, 
darlin’, what of it? Well do I remember how 
the Howly Father put his hands on me as I wuz 
laving Cork forever. ‘Daughter,’ sez he, in a 
voice to melt stone itself, ‘Daughter,’ he sez, 
‘you’re goin’ away and I’ll miss ye. Don’t ye 
want me prayers, daughter?’ And when I told 
him I did, in that same swate tone he says, ‘How 
much hev you got in your bag, daughter?’ and I 
sez, ‘Not much, yer Riv-rence, for the famine 
wuz bad last year, just a few harpers and a 
handful of raps.’ ‘And would ye divide with 
your Praste what’s got to stay here and can’t git 
away to America where there’s money to burn ? 
It’s not for meself I’d be asking’ but fer the poor 


Mikey j s Letters to Saint Peter 51 

what’s suffering.’ And when I divided with the 
Howly Father he put his hands on me head and 
said in thim same swate tones, ‘God bless you, 
me child—Gawd bless ye!’ Never shall I fergit 
it. Taint no harm in a praste putting his hands 
on yer head, darlin’.” 

“He didn’t put his hands on my head,” Aggie 
snapped back. 

“Mebbe on your shoulder, darlin’.” 

“Not on my shoulder neither.” 

“I bet he pinched her arm,” I says to Maw, 
“and if Big Blue finds it out he’ll—” 

“I suppose it wuz your back then. I don’t 
know no other place.” 

“No—not my back—the dirty devil!” 

“I bet he pinched her arm,” I says to Maw, 
“and if he did and Big Blue finds it out, he’ll—” 

“Shut up,” yelled Aggie to me, “shut up and 
stay shut. This here aint no time for gabbing.” 

“Angels and Saints!” says Maw getting nerv¬ 
ous, “if he didn’t put his hands on your head nor 
your shoulder nor your back nor no other place, 
where did he put them?” 

“The bull-headed, bull-necked, bull-breathing 
beast!” says Aggie getting ready to cry. “Mikey, 
if you’re me own true brother get out the old 
meat knife and sharpen it up. I’ll teach that 


52 Mikey's Letters to Saint Peter 

snake-eyed devil that calls himself a ‘Holy Fa¬ 
ther’ a thing before I get done with him,” and 
Aggie began crying. 

“Mother of Christ!” Maw exclaimed, “If this 
here’s the way spiritual solace gits in its work, 
don’t go to the Holy Father’s confessional no 
more. Taint worth it, Aggie, darlin’,” and Maw 
took Aggie in her arms and wiped the tears off 
her red cheeks. For a minute Aggie let Maw 
baby her. Then she jerked away and said, 
“Once more will I go to that box of satan. Next 
time its the old meat knife I’ll have hid in my 
stocking leg and when that evil beast gets out in 
daylight his friends will think he’s a walking 
butcher shop got loose, for take it from Aggie 
Rooney I’ll spoil the countenance of him for— 
for—putting his hands on me.” Then Aggie 
started crying again and throwed herself down 
on the bed and cried till she fell asleep. Maw 
said Aggie wuz tired out and the Holy Father 
like as not asked her some questions about Big 
Blue she didn’t want to tell. Maw says there’s a 
lot off stuff the priest asks what girls and women 
don’t want to talk about and if they aint good 
Catholics they balk. Aggie don’t seem to be no 
good Catholic or she wouldn’t raise so much 
sand no matter what the Howly Father done. 


CHAPTER VII 
Cannibals 

Saint Peter, 

Holy and Respected Sir: 

Maw tried two or three times to pick Aggie 
and fid out something more about her and 
Father Roux at confession. But Aggie got so 
fighting mad every time she heard his name 
Maw let up on her and started working on me 
so’s I’d go to Mass at St. Patrick’s on Christmas 
night. Father Roux says everybody in his 
parish ought to go to St. Patrick’s once a year. 
St. Patrick’s is the cathedral church. It cost 
four million dollars, Father Roux says, and it 
stands as a monument to the self-sacrifice of 
thousands of devoted poor who have contributed 
the savings of their humble toil at washtubs and 
workshops. And the poor can get in and see it all 
free with never a charge for nothing but twen¬ 
ty-five cents for a seat and the price of the Mass. 

So Maw decided I’d represent the family at 
midnight Mass. We’d been hoping since cold 
weather set in that we’d have the luck to get a 
bed as four of us wuz sleeping on the floor. But 
with saving for the toe-bone of St. Joseph and 


53 


54 Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 

getting Paddy and Nora out of Purgatory and 
buying some new scapulars (for three of us 
Rooneys lost ourn) so’s we can git out of Purga¬ 
tory the Saturday after we get in, we couldn’t 
get no new bed and had to take turn sleeping on 
the floor. 

As often as time to go bed come about, Maw 
growled about the space Paw filled and said 
when Paddy and Nora wuz safe she wuz going 
to bust up the holy bonds of matrimony that 
held her to Paw, run him off and have the police 
arrest him if he ever set foot on her place again. 

I didn’t know nothing about Mass when I 
started to Parochial school and some more boys 
and girls from Free School didn’t know nothing 
about it. So Sister Clementina Carmel who 
teaches catechism and Church history and Lives 
of the Saints taught us about it. 

Mass is a show. It shows the way the Son of 
the Blessed Holy Virgin ate his last supper, wuz 
arrested and marched off to be killed. He wuz 
killed by the Jews. Sister Clementina Carmel 
says the Jews are a bad lot—that there aint 
nothing worse except infidels and free-masons. 
They made him carry his own cross and on the 
way when he wuz tired a lady wiped his face and 
got his photograph on her handkerchief. At 


Mikf.y’.s Letters to Saint Peter 55 

the last supper he changed bread and wine into 
real flesh and blood—no make-believe—no pink- 
colored water, but real flesh and blood. When 
he got it turned into some more of his own body 
beside what wuz with him he ate the small part 
and drank his own blood. I seen a man in a 
show turn a cabbage into a rabbit once. He 
wiggled his hnds out over the cabbage and said 
‘Hocus pocus,’ and I’m shot if there didn’t set 
that blame rabbit. But I haint never seen any¬ 
thing like a man turning bread into himself and 
then eating it. After he done this he told Peter, 
who wuz the first Pope, he wuz going to give 
him power to do the same miracle. And he did 
and after the Son of the Blessed Holy Virgin 
wuz dead and gone to heaven, Peter gave a sup¬ 
per and he turned the bread into the real flesh 
and wine into real blood. Then Peter he passed 
the miracle power on to another Pope and his 
priests and so its been handed down for a thou¬ 
sand years and when a man takes holy orders 
he’s made into a Priest and can change bread 
into flesh and wine into blood, and its called 
Mass. The Priest, he acts the part of Jesus and 
the altar—that’s the Cross. The Priest, he takes 
the bread now called Host. He turns it into 
meat, not cooked, and they gather around and 


58 


Mikey^s Letters to Saint Peter 


its good exercise and fixes faith. If I haint got 
it wrong its t-r-a-n-s, trans, s-u-b, sub, trans sub; 
s-t-a-an, stan, transubstan; t-i ti, transubstanti, 
a, transubstantia, t-i-o-n, shun, transsubstantia¬ 
tion. Sister Clementina Carmel and Sister 
Agatha both says all folks that don't believe in 
this here is infidels and heretics and don't stand 
no show of getting as much as one squint at even 
the back gate of heaven. 

When I wuz in Free School Miss Hattie read 
us that a long time ago men what wuz called can¬ 
nibals eat up other men. She says they used to 
fight with clubs and stones and the bunch what 
got killed furnished a picnic dinner for the 
bunch what did the killing. She says the live 
ones rolled the dead ones in the mud till they got 
a good crust all over them, then they rolled them 
in the fire and roasted them done, scraped off the 
baked mud and cleaned up the table even to 
picking the bones. Them wuz savages—the 
man-eating kind. Miss Hattie says cannibals is 
mostly dead, and I took it Miss Hattie knew. 
But Sister Clementina Carmel and Sister 
Agatha and Father Alphonsus what teaches Ag¬ 
gers, and Father Roux all says Free Schools 
don't teach the truth. So maybe priests do turn 
crackers into real man-flesh and maybe folks 


Mikf.y’s Letters to Saint Peter 59 

that don’t have no appearance of being savages 
gathers round and eats it. If they do, it just 
proves that Miss Hattie aint as smart as she 
thinks she is an cannibals is not yet all dead. 

I aint saying nothing about who’s right and 
who’s wrong. It’s a mortal sin to question or to 
doubt and I wouldn’t do it for nothing. But 
when I go to Mass at St. Patrick’s I’m going to 
slip a pill-box up my sleeve and see if I can’t get 
one of them wafers turned to flesh. If priests 
can turn flour-and-water-wafers into man-flesh 
they can turn cabbages into rabbits or do any 
other magic stunts they want to and holy orders 
is the job I’ll be fitting myself for. 


CHAPTER VIII 
The Show at St. Patrick’s 
Saint Peter, 

Holy Sir: 

I hav’nt ever been to heaven yet and don’t 
know what kind of petticoats and shimmys you 
popes and saints rig out in when you do your 
Heavenly Mass, but believe me, if you put on a 
better show than they do at Midnight Mass at 
St. Patrick’s I don’t see how you do it unless you 
let your lady angels take part. They don’t have 
no ladies in the show here on earth. They let 
them take holy orders and wear clothes like no¬ 
body else wears. But they don’t tell them how 
to do stunts like changing bread into flesh nor 
even walk in the big parade to the Altar. The 
lady’s what has holy orders comes in a side door 
all covered with long black veils and kneel on a 
bench in the front row and say prayers on beads. 
But what the ladies lack in bright colors and 
grand dresses the men has on. 

I got to St. Patrick’s early and went clear to 
the front so I could see the whole thing. I don’t 
know what sort of flowers you have on your 
Altar and I suppose your angels is the real kind 


60 


Mi key's Letters to Saint Peter 61 

that can fly. The angels at St. Patrick’s areheavy- 
weights, stone and marble and such stuff. But 
say, Howly Saint Peter, I didn’t know there wuz 
such a beautiful place in the world as the Altar 
of St. Patrick’s with the angels drooping their 
wings over it and a thousand lights with flowers 
growing between them and ferns and vines and 
over it all burning high, the red light that never 
goes out. On one side wuz the Blessed Virgin 
Mary flying off somewhere with her baby tucked 
in the front of her dress and a crown of electric 
lights shining over her head. On the other side 
stood Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Holy 
Virgin, but who didn’t never marry her. If he’d 
married her she would have been Mrs. Joseph 
and her child would have had a real Paw. I 
told Maw Sister Clementina Carmel wuz telling 
us at Parochial what a godly man the Spouse 
of the Holy Virgin wuz and how obedient, to toil 
for her and the child and yet remain ever a hus¬ 
band in name only. Maw says its a good thing 
the Church made its saints out of the men what 
lived in them far-off days. She says them that’s 
living today working hard to support virgin 
wives and children they’re not daddy to, is scarce 
as hen’s teeth. Sister Clementina Carmel says 
Joseph is deserving of the highest honor in the 


62 Mikey's Letters to Saint Peter 

Church. I see where she’s right. If Joseph 
hadn’t lived like a saint and let his wife be a vir¬ 
gin there wouldn’t have been any Blessed Holy 
Virgin Mary, and when the Virgin goes the bot¬ 
tom tumbles out of the Holy Church. So they 
put a crown around the head of Saint Joseph 
too, and it wuz shining at Christmass Mass. 

The real show began when the parade came in. 
You ought to have seen the Bishop. He wore a 
long red train carried by some boys in black pet¬ 
ticoats and white kimonas—the bob-tailed kind 
like Aggie gets at Snyder’s knocked down to 
39c. The Bishop wore a little red hat turned up 
all around. After the Bishop and his train- 
bearers came the rest of the leading men. They 
wuz wearing the finest clothes you ever saw. 
Some had lace petticoats and some cloth. Some 
wore middy-blouses, like Aggie’s, only bigger 
and finer. Some wore kimonas. A few had on 
shirts with the tails hanging out over their petti¬ 
coats. A lot of them had on white satin opera 
capes like the fine ladies wears at shows, only I 
never seen so much gold roses and gold lace and 
grand embroidery and shining fringe in all my 
life. As the parade crossed the Altar every 
man dropped on his knee and made bows. This 
was in front of the little cupboard up high on the 


Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 68 

altar, where, behind a little curtain, the crackers 
and wine is kept what Sister Clementina Carmel 
calls the “Mysterious Host.” 

There wuz a bundle of clothes on the Altar 
what had to be put on the Bishop. His long train 
wuz taken off and a bunch of the priests in white 
capes stood around in front while the others 
changed the long red train for a short red petti¬ 
coat with a white lace overskirt and they stood 
a three-story hat on his head with gold signs all 
over it. When he wuz all fixed he went in front 
of the Altar and somebody handed him a big, 
round silvery-looking ball with holes in it. It 
had a long chain handle, and smoke wuz coming 
out through the holes. The Bishop swung this 
like he wuz flagging a train and the smoke came 
puffing out. It wuz sweet smoke and smelled up 
the whole place. I don’t know what it wuz for 
but I suppose he wuz fumigating. Then the 
Bishop and the rest of them read and prayed 
and the people that filled the church kept kneel¬ 
ing down and getting up and crossing them¬ 
selves. Pretty soon some bells rang and the 
Bishop and all the Priests bowed low. Then 
more bells rang. Then one of the Priests took 
the ball of smoke and while two other Priests 
held up the Bishop’s white satin shirt-tail, he 


64 Mikey j s Letters to Saint Peter 

shook the ball and the smoke come puffing out 
from under the shirt-tail. I suppose he wuz 
doing more fumigating. Then more bells rang. 
By this time the wafer up in the little cup-board 
wuz turned into flesh and they got it out. The 
Bishop took a bite and gave each of the Priests 
his share, one of them holding a silver plate un¬ 
der the chins of the rest of them so’s no crumb 
could fall on unholy ground. The plate wuz a 
consecrated plate and the fingers of the Priests 
is consecrated fingers, them acting the part of 
the Son of the Blessed Holy Virgin. 

After the Priests got theirs the folks went up 
and kneeled down by the altar railing which wuz 
covered with white sheets and towels. They 
stuck their hands under these sheets and towels, 
stretched their necks forward, shut their eyes 
and run out their tongues ready for the man- 
flesh made out of cracker. Then the Priest come 
holding the little thin wafer between his conse¬ 
crated fingers and dropped it onto the tongue 
which wuz sticking out. Then the one what got 
it let it go down without mashing it in the teeth 
and wuz happy. 

I picked the place I wuz going to kneel down 
close against the wall so’s I could slip one hand 
out from under the sheet and get my pill-box 


Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 65 

ready. Just before the Priest got to me I licked 
my tongue good and dry on my coat and when 
he dropped the wafer on it I held still a minute. 
Then I hunched down a little and slid my wafer 
into my pill-box and got up and went away look¬ 
ing happy as the rest of them. 

When I got home I put it in a plate and stuck 
a penknife in it. But no blood spurted. I tried 
two or three times but nothing red or even pale 
pink showed up. Next morning I got a nail— 
like the Jew did—and tried again. 

“Mikey,” says Maw, “what’s that yer foolin’ 
wid?” 

“A small section of flesh,” says I. 

“Flesh?” says Maw, “flesh of what?” 

“A man,” says I. 

“Michael, me son,” says Maw, “you wuz al¬ 
ways a liar, me son. But since you’re in Paro- 
chiel yer tin times worse. D’ye think I’m be- 
laving yer idiotic lies? Lemme see what ye 
got?” 

When Maw seen what I had she says, “Muhr- 
der! Michael! Git that howly thing out of me 
house! Take it away!” 

“I’m taking it to Sister Clementina Carmel,” 
says I. “She told me the Priest turned it into 
flesh—real, sure enough flesh of a man and I’m 


66 Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 

taking it to show her it aint no more flesh than 
our cook-stove. Look at it!” 

But Maw drew back saying like she wuz 
scared to death, “God and all the howly saints 
have mercy,” and running to the shelf she 
crossed herself and began praying to the Virgin 
and Saint Joseph, between prayers telling me to 
run fast to Sister Clementina Carmel or I’d be 
struck dead in my tracks for my sacrilege before 
I ever got there. 

I hurried to Parochial and gave the pill-box to 
Sister Clementina Carmel and told her I couldn’t 
get no blood out of it. When she looked in the 
box she give a fearful scream and dropped it all. 
Then she called Sister Agatha and Father Al- 
phonsus and they all stood back shivering while 
I told them it wasn’t nothing but a cracker. 

Then Father Roux wuz sent for. 

“What’s this?” says he looking at the bunch 
of us. 

“Mortal sin,” says Sister Clementina Carmel. 

“Sacrilege,” says Sister Agatha. 

“Persecution—infidel apostacy!” says Father 
Alphonsus. 

“What you been doing?” says His Riverance 
to me. 

“I aint done nothing,” says I, “but to get this 


Mi key's Letters to Saint Peter 67 

here cracker and bring it to Sister Clementina 
Carmel. She said it wuz flesh, and blood would 
spurt out and I wanted to see for myself.” 

“You wanted to see! You wanted to see! 
This the vile teaching of that godless system 
known as the Free School. You wanted to see 
for yourself? Couldn’t you take the word of a 
holy Sister and a holy Priest, Couldn’t you, I 
say?” 

Then he got down on his kneews to examine. 
“It looks like the Host,” he says, “but it’s not. 
See—touch it—its nothing but the wafer and by 
this sign what he says is not true. He never 
got this from the consecrated fingers of a 
priest.” 

Then Father Roux told me I should swear I 
was a liar or he’d consign me to the Protectorate 
in this life and torment hereafter. I wasn’t so all- 
fired scared of torment cause if he don’t hit the 
truth no nearer on hell fire than he does on 
wafers turned to flesh, he don’t know nothing 
about it. But when he said “Protectorate” he 
got my goat. I knew a kid what wuz sent to the 
Protectorate from the Juvenile. He told me 
what’s doing in there where nobody ever comes 
to inspect and there aint no cops to help a feller 
out. So I told Father Roux I was the durndest 


68 Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 

big liar God ever turned loose, that I made the 
whole tale up—and the wafer too, to get a little 
joke on Sister Clementina Carmel. I told him 
I believed every word she said and wouldn’t ask 
another question if I lived to be a thousand. 

But I want to slip it to you, Saint Peter, I’ve 
told you the facts in the case and just between 
the two of us I think Miss Hattie wuz right when 
she says the cannibals is all dead. Anyhow them 
people who think they’re eating sure enough 
flesh is being miked to a fare-you-well. 


CHAPTER IX 
We Give a Charity Bazaar 
Saint Peter, 

Highly Respected Sir: 

His Riverence, Father Roux, says the Paro¬ 
chial is one of the most important of all the in¬ 
stitutions of Mother Church. He says in addi¬ 
tion to building up the most holy faith of the 
True Church in coming generations its a fine 
thing for working up charity bazaars, and char¬ 
ity bazaars is the best money getting stunts the 
priests pull off. 

When I found out priests are just faking when 
they say they work the magic on the bread I 
thought maybe I’d better try t owork up to being 
an American Citizen instead of a Holy Father. 
Then I says what difference does it make if they 
do fake the people, if the people don’t know no 
better. Its the same for the priest. Then when 
I found out what grand things these charity 
bazaars is for the priests, I says for sure I’ll take 
holy orders. 

When I told Maw she said I wasn’t going to do 
no such thing. Priests is all right if you don’t 


69 


70 Mtkey's Letters to Saint Peter 

get too much of them but they’re mighty ex¬ 
pensive to support and too many of them grinds 
the poor too hard. Maw says, “Back in the ould 
counthry, Michael, me son, I lived to see the 
howly fathers so plentiful there wuz one in every 
neighborhood to be supported after the manner 
that howly fathers demands. And there wuz 
convents and nunneries built up all over and the 
poor bein’ stharved to pay fer it all. So my 
fawther sez—poor sowl—‘Let’s lave owld Ire¬ 
land and git into Americky where there’s more 
men, and howly fathers is not takin’ the earth.’ 
And so we come, Michael, me son, and wuz get- 
tin’ by with enough to eat and a roof overhead 
and a bit put aside in the bank, whin here comes 
along His Riv’rence to git our hard earnins 
again fer the prastes. I’m not begrudgin’ it at 
all—at all until poor little Paddy and Nora gets 
where they can be aisy. But Michael—me son— 
supposin’ you boys what’s in Parochial takes a 
notion to be prastes. God, Michael, me boy- 
how’s the poor goin’ to feed the whole raft of 
thim? ’Twill be like it is in the owld counthry. 
Suppose, now, Michael, that Father Roux wuz 
three howly fathers insthed of only one— 
what’ud we do? God have mercy, Michael, me 


Mi key's Letters to Saint Peter 71 

son, we’d be sucked dhry as the skin on a last 
year’s lemon. Git the praste out of your head. 
They works a hardship on the poor. Enough 
of a good thing’s enough,” says Maw. 

But Maw don’t know how these charity ba¬ 
zaars is run. There’s something to them besides 
what folks sees and somebody gets the money be¬ 
sides what folks thinks. I found this out when 
Father Roux sent me to Alderman Mulginty’s 
saloon, though it aint called a saloon no more, to 
give him twenty-five tickets. They cost a dollar 
apiece and wuz tickets to the big charity bazaar 
which wuz to be given in an uptown park for the 
poor little orphans in an assylum. 

Sister Clementina Carmel picked out some of 
the boys and girls in Parochial and excused them 
from school for a week to sell tickets. I wuz 
told to go to Father Roux house which is stuck 
onto one side of the Parochial and get the tick¬ 
ets and take them to Alderman Mulginty’s sa¬ 
loon. Father Roux said it wuz the Alderman’s 
day to visit this saloon and I wuz to ask for him 
and give him the tickets. 

I found him alright and handed him the pack¬ 
age just like Father Roux told me. 

“What’s this?” says Alderman Mulginty. 


72 Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 

“Its twenty-five tickets at one dollar each to 
the charity bazaar for the poor little orphans,” 
I says. 

“It is, hey?” he said, mad like. “Who sent 
them here?” 

“Father Roux,” says I. 

Then he cussed a little and said, “Take them 
back to Father Roux and tell him I’ve had my 
leg pulled to the limit. I’m working night and 
day getting city funds for Catholic institutions. 
I haven’t never turned down nothing the Church 
has asked for in the way of appropriations for 
assylums and houses of mercy and homes for 
the faithful and all such things. And I’ve helped 
get every church and parsonage and convent and 
hospital and school in New York City on the free 
tax list beside fifty-eight homes, nineteen clubs, 
four assylums, five colleges, one protectory and 
three cemeteries. I’ve helped get their whole 
blooming lot of real estate worth $100,000,000 
on the free tax list and over $2,000,000 out of the 
city fund to help run these Church institutions, 
half of them which is self-supporting. And here 
he comes now telling me to hand over some of 
my own coin for bazaar tickets. Take them 


Mikey's Letters to Saint Peter 78 

back, buddie. There’s nothing stirring in the 
way of money.” 

When I gave the tickets back to Father Roux 
he wuz mad. He said, “We’ll see,” and he sent 
me out in another direction with another bunch 
to another saloonkeeper who took them. 

The next night after this Father Roux met 
Paw just as he wuz coming home and stopped 
him. 

“Mr. Rooney,” says he, “just a minute. You 
know Mulginty, do you?” 

“Do I?“ says Paw, “its me home, Mulginty’s is 
and me friend is Mulginty. And fer his kind¬ 
ness I turn things a bit his way whin the votes is 
cast.” 

“A friend you are of Mulginty’s? Well, are 
you a True Son of the Mother Church?” says 
Father Roux. 

“That I am,” answered Paw. “There aint no 
truer living’.” 

“Well, listen now,” says the Howly Father, 
“Mulginty’s going to be let out from being Aider- 
man. He’s been in a long time but he’s not act¬ 
ing the part of True Son of Mother Church and 
there’s those who will. There’s a new place, Mr. 
Rooney, where you can get a drink just two 


74 Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 

blocks farther down. Drop in tonight. You’ll 
find all your old friends there and free drinks 
and a jolly good time. And Rooney, get ac¬ 
quainted with the boss. He’s likely to be the 
next Alderman. You’ll drop in, Rooney?” 

“Free drinks and yer askin’ if I’ll drop in?” 
and Paw laughed till I thought he’d fall off the 
pavement. 

I don’t know what changed Alderman Mul- 
ginty’s mind about the tickets. Maybe the first 
lot wasn’t big enough. Anyhow he come down 
to see Father Roux next day and I seen him 
give him some bills and take two packages of 
tickets. He said he wuz doing it for the poor 
little orphans. 

Father Roux sent Maw word she had to go 
and take all the Rooneys. He said folks like 
Maw and her children which had a good home 
and plenty of everything didn’t know nothing 
about the sorrows of poor little orphans and it 
wuz their Christian duty to help bazaars. He 
told Maw to bring all the spare change she had 
so the children could have a good time. 

Maw said she would have had a good time if 
she’d won anything. There wuz all sorts of grab 
—bags and raffles and chance games. Maw tried 


Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 75 

them all as long as her money lasted and didn’t 
get nothing but a paper monkey with a long 
string tail out of a fish pond. There wuz one 
place she spent half a dollar buying paddles to 
see if she couldn’t draw a doll for poor little 
Bridget. Bridget wuz sick and had a boil on her 
back to boot. She seen the dolls and begged so 
hard Maw tried her luck. The lady at the wheel 
wuz about as pretty as you ever set eyes on. 
After a while she got sorry for poor little howl¬ 
ing Bridget and gave her a doll that the legs had 
come loose from. The sawdust wuz leaking out 
but Maw tied the leak with the string off her 
monkey’s tail and Bridget wuz tickled to death. 
Maw said it wuz luck—but not gambling luck. 

The charity bazaar lasted a week. Thousands 
of folks wuz there and loads of money wuz col¬ 
lected in for the poor little orphans. 

Father Roux wuz present everytime I wuz 
there and stayed around the booth where the 
pretty lady turned the wheel for the dolls. She 
didn’t have no such opinion of him as our Aggie 
has. She liked to have him around and when 
the wheel wouldn’t work or a doll got jabbed and 
started to losing sawdust she asked Father 
Roux to help her fix things and he wuz there. 


76 Mikey's Letters to Saint Peter 

One night, just before the bazaar closed, I seen 
Father Roux and the pretty lady going for a 
walk. I didn’t know where they wuz headed 
and wuz just trailing along when I seen him 
look over at a little house hid in behind some 
vines, and seen this wuz the way they wuz going. 
Then I started to following sure enough and 
when I seen them go in, I figgered he wuz going 
to have confessional and I’d slip up and see what 
it wuz he said that made Aggie so hopping mad. 

Around on the back side the vines and bushes 
wuz thick and I had to crawl in easy and slow. 
So I didn’t get to hear the whole thing and they 
didn’t stay in there but a minute. But what I 
heard was curious. I heard him say, “You’re 
sure he won’t be home?’’ 

“She says, “I’m not looking for him. But even 
if he should come, and should come out to the 
house and find you there, are you not a holy 
father? Are you not a priest? He would never 
suspect anything.” 

“Are you sure he has never suspected any¬ 
thing?” 

“Don’t get cold feet, ducky-darling,” she 
says laughing real low and sweet, “my husband 
is a good Catholic, a good Catholic, sweetheart. 
He thinks he is the father of little Jim. He said 


Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 77 


only this morning, ‘Don’t he look like me?’ and I 
assured him he did. Come tomorrow.” 

Then I heard something that wasn’t talking, 
nor laughing, nor crying, nor no sound except 
kissing. I didn’t know priests were such blame 
good kissers. 

Father Roux says he’s for charity bazaars, 
they’re a great institution. I’m fer them, too— 
pretty ladies and all. 


CHAPTER X 
A Peck of Bones 

Saint Peter, 

Infallible First Pope: 

Since I wrote the first letter to you I’ve been 
learning lots in school. First, I’ve been learning 
about His Holiness, the Pope. He has a heap of 
names—enough to call him a fresh one every 
day for a month, so they tell. The Pope used to 
be chief cook and bottle washer of the whole 
creation. He had millions of soldiers and when 
he told them to get a move on themselves, they 
got. He cleaned up with all the nations of the 
earth and all earthly rulers and Princes and 
Kings tumbled over themselves to run errands 
for him, and do anything else he said. So well 
trained were they that when he said, “Stand on 
your head,” they stood. When he said “Jump 
through the hoop,” they jumped. When he said, 
“Come on with your Peter’s Pence,” they came. 

And this was as God intended and God wuz 
well pleased. You can see how this would be, 
the God being the Pope and the Pope being God. 
It couldn’t be no other way. 

But after a while the devil came butting in. 


78 


Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 79 

His name wuz Luther. How he ever got nerve 
enough to go up against God on Earth is more 
than I know, but he did. He bucked right square 
up against God on Earth and since that evil day 
the Vicegerant of God has been having hard 
luck. 

As long as His Holiness wuz at the head of 
everything he didn’t let anybody go to school ex¬ 
cept a few rich. There wasn’t any schools to go 
to and he wouldn’t use none of his good coin set¬ 
ting up schools. Schools is not a good thing un¬ 
less they happen to be Parochial. Schools, as like 
as not, set folks thinking, and folks that think 
are the most pestiferous and troublesome folks 
on earth. That’s the reason the Church don’t en¬ 
courage schools. The Church does the thinking 
for everybody in it. So itwuz that when that man 
Luther bucked up against the Church, there 
wuzn’t any school except them the Pope wuz 
using for the Church. 

Martin Luther stirred up an awful fuss. Folks 
says, “What’s it all about?” and before anybody 
knew what wuz happening some printing presses 
got loosened up and folks began reading and 
thinking for themselves. It wuz an awful shame 
that it had to happen and has made a rocky path 
for the feet of God-on-Earth. 


80 Mi key's Letters to Saint Peter 

Sister Clementina Carmel says persecution 
has been heaped on the head of Holy Mother 
Church ever since that sinful priest Luther 
backslid. And she says the crowning infamy of 
it all is that a Jew—just like you used to be— 
is mayor of the city where the Pope’s Vatican is. 

The Vatican is a big palace of thousands of 
rooms where God keeps his diamonds and gold 
plate and jewelled crowns and robes and paint¬ 
ings and statutory locked up so none of the poor 
that’s starving just outside the gates can break 
in and steal a few cents worth. Sister Clemen¬ 
tina Carmel gets riled up when she thinks of the 
Jew mayor. I don’t see why though. The 
Blessed Holy Virgin was a Jew. So was Saint 
Joseph, her Spouse, and so wuz her Son. And 
so wuz you and by the way His Holiness the 
Pope holds on to what he’s got, he’s a Jew his- 
self. 

But I started to tell what I’ve learned in Paro¬ 
chial. I’ve been learning history. Sister Agatha 
says all that what I learned in Free School wuz 
wrong. She says the tree of liberty wuz planted 
on American soil by Catholics. This country 
wuz discovered by a Catholic who wuz furnished 
with funds by a Catholic queen and blessed by a 
Catholic Pope. The signers of the Declaration 


Mikey's Letters to Saint Peter 81 

of Independence wuz all Catholics but one. New 
York never had any liberty till Catholics got in 
a Governor and Maryland wuz the first to grant 
civil and religious liberty. She says George 
Washington was called the father of his country 
but he got his good ideas from Lafayette, who 
wuz a Catholic. 

Father Alphonsus says its a shame the way 
history is taught in Free Schools and that the 
time is coming when there won’t be no more 
Free Schools to poison the minds of the coming 
generations. 

Sister Clementina Carmel asked him if he 
thought Catholics wuz going to have to fight 
with guns for their right to Parochial schools. 
He says they’re hoping to “undermine” the Free 
Schools. I don’t know what sort of an under¬ 
mine the Church uses to blow up things like Free 
Schools. I suppose its something like these 
mines they use to blow up ships. 

I’ve learned more than this I’ve told but I 
can’t take time to tell it. I want to ask you to 
look up Saint Joseph and see with your own 
eyes what kind of an animal he is. The image on 
our shelf looks like a human. But there’s a mis¬ 
take somewhere and Maw is madder than a wet 
hen and she’s about to have it out with Father 


82 Mi key’s Letters to Saint Peter 

Roux. If he hadn’t been drunk the day Maw 
got her toe-bone of St. Joseph, she’s had it out 
then. 

You see Maw and all of us, pinched along all 
winter saving up for the toe-bone, guaranteed 
by Father Roux to be the best relic ever sent out 
on account of being so few of them. 

Just before we got ourn I asked Sister Agatha 
how many bones wuz in a man’s foot. She said 
she wasn’t no doctor. I told her at Free School 
they taught bones. She said I wasn’t never to 
tell her nothing more about what they did at 
Free School. She didn’t see the need of study¬ 
ing about bones unless it wuz saints’ bones. Then 
I asked her how many bones wuz in a saint’s 
foot. She said as many as wuz in his foot when 
he wuz a man. 

I couldn’t get from this information the exact 
number, but by feeling my own foot I figgered 
out there might be twenty. 

We got our bone just before Easter. Maw wuz 
so proud she cleaned up and invited everybody 
in to see it. Mary McGraw come first. She 
come grinning and said she had a surprise. She 
had a bone of the big toe of Saint Joseph. Then 
come two women from down stairs. They had 
bones from the toe of Saint Joseph. Then come 


Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 83 

three women from across the street and five 
from down the alley. They all had bones from 
Saint Joseph’s toe. 

“Howly Angels and Christ!” says Maw, mad¬ 
der than thunder, “how many toe-bones did 
Saint Joseph have?” 

“Put them on the floor and let’s count,” says I. 

So we put them on the floor, two by two and 
two by two as long as the bones kept coming in 
until we had something built out a yard long, 
and Maw and all other ladies getting madder 
and madder every minute. 

When the last bone wuz set in place Maw wuz 
past the point of speech. 

“Looks like a thousand-legged worm,” says I. 
“Saint Joseph must have been one of them things 
that stood on his hind legs and eat tops out of 
trees. Miss Hattie told us about them in Free 
School. They all died off before we got here. 
But then so did Saint Joseph. How do we know 
what kind he wuz?” 

“Michael, my son,” says Maw, “I don’t know 
what sort of baste you’re spaking of, but you go 
fetch His Riv’rence. ’Twasn’t the fut of no evil 
baste that sthood on his back legs to eat grass 
off the tree tous I’ve stharved meself these 


84 Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 

months. Git, me son Michael, and fetch the 
praste.” 

I didn’t lose no time. The housekeeper at 
Father Roux opened a crack in the door and told 
me the holy father wuz sick. 

But Beany Buck that lived across the street 
says he seen him going in tanked just a few min¬ 
utes before. 

The bones wuz gathered into a basket. Maw 
said they wuz a peck of them. 


CHAPTER XI 


“Private” 

Saint Peter, 

Decent and Respected Sir: 

I’ve marked this letter “Private” so you’ll not 
leave it laying around where any of the lady 
angels will get it. It might be embarrassing 
and what angels don’t know, don’t hurt them. 

Before I get into the part that wouldn’t be 
lady-like for your girl angels, I’ll tell how Father 
Roux straightened things out with Maw. When 
he seen the basket of bones and all the mad 
women he said there wuz a mistake. He said 
them bones in the basket wuz not the bones he 
had ordered from Rome. He said them bones 
wuz going to a menagerie somewhere and it wuz 
all the fault of the Express Company. He said 
he’d get a tracer right out after the real bones 
and if they shouldn’t never be found he promised 
Maw a Miraculous Medal with “Hi coculorum” 
inscribed on it and specially blessed by His Holi¬ 
ness the Pope. Whoever says the words on this 
medal and wears it can do anything even to mov¬ 
ing mountains or turning them into men. 


85 


86 Mikey’n Letters to Saint Peter 

Maw said she didn’t want no medal to turn 
anything into a man. She said she had more 
man now then she wanted. She’d like to have 
a medal that would turn a pot of soup into a de¬ 
cent stew. 

This wuz the way they patched up. 

Next thing that come wuz Easter. Father 
Roux had Mass and the rest of the Church do¬ 
ings and cleaned up with a pocket full of money 
for there wuz four hundred to Mass and Masses 
is always paid for. 

Some folks thinks priests aint human no more 
after they take holy orders. But if they could 
see some of them at Mulginty’s they wouldn’t 
doubt they wuz human. Back of Mulginty’s 
there’s a room what’s shut off what folks drink 
in. It’s in this room I’ve seen the holy fathers 
act like any other humans and it wuz here a few 
of them celebrated the night after Easter and 
blowed in some of their Mass money. 

Paw’d been getting himself ready for another 
beating and Maw sent me out to see if I could 
bring him in before he’d spent his last cent. She 
said if he come in stewed she’d beat him to a 
frazzle and she wuz too tired to start it unless 
she had to. 

It wuz when I wuz looking for Paw I found 


Mik Kr’s Letters to Saint Peter 87 

the priests having their celebration in the back 
room. I didn’t get there to see the start and 
they wouldn’t have let me in anyhow. But by 
this time they wouldn’t have cared who looked 
in. There wuz four of them. Father Roux and 
the father that talked to the lady in the dark 
house wuz dancing together to beat the band. 
They wuz singing and wuz both drunk as boiled 
owls. Father Alphonsis was lying across the 
table trying to laugh, and another one wuz sit¬ 
ting asleep in a big chair. 

I don’t know what sort of drinks you heavenly 
priests get. Maybe you that’s been Popes get 
fine goods like our Bishops and Archbishops do. 
Maybe you like beer. Beer’s the best because a 
man can drink the most of it. He can pour in 
and pour in until he’s running over. This wuz 
what these holy fathers had been drinking and 
there wuz two rows of empty bottles standing 
along the wall. All of them priests wuz full to 
running over and after they’d danced a while, 
Father Roux got one of the empty bottles. What 
he done I’m not saying. Then he danced a little 
more and got another empty bottle. The priest 
that kissed the lady in the dark house got one, 
too. Then they danced a few more turns, but 
they wuz getting wobblety now. Father Alphon- 


88 Mi key’s Letters to Saint Petek 

sus wuz sound asleep, snoring like a hog and 
beer leaking out his mouth and down onto the 
table. Father Roux tried to tickle him awake, 
but he only grunted. Then Father Roux and the 
Father that loved the pretty lady, got some of 
the beer bottles what had been empty but wasn’t 
empty now, up on the table and wuz going to 
play a joke on Father Alphonsus when the man 
that run the place come snorting in cussing. 

“Drop it,” he says to Father Roux who wuz 
holding up one of the bottles. “You don’t pull 
off no such dirty stunt as that at Mulginty’s. 
And its ashamed you should be if you are priests 
—ashamed,” and jawing and cussing he threw 
the bottles out the back door. 

Father Roux said he wuz covered with shame 
and he sung a piece of the Mass and crossed him¬ 
self and kissed the table. 

I didn’t stay to see it out. I had to go on 
looking for Paw. 

Now what I want to say is this. A man ought 
to be let to have his innocent amusement with¬ 
out being snitched on. But Sister Clementina 
Carmel says priests is the representatives on 
earth of the Son of the Blessed Virgin. I haven’t 
heard half as much about the Son as I have his 
Maw. But from what little I’ve heard He is a 


Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 89 

decent and honorable gentleman and its no part 
of a square deal for a priest or anybody else to 
be representing him like Father Roux does. If 
it wasn’t for his lying and his grafting and his 
boozing and his low-down ways of taking his 
amusements and his habits of getting fresh with 
young girls, he might be alright. 

He is on his way to heaven and there aint no 
way of heading him off. He’s taken holy orders 
in the Infallible Church and the gates of hell 
shall not prevail against him. 

But take a tip from Mikey. Keep him off the 
streets when he’s full of beer or he’ll disgrace 
you and some Angel cop will have to lock him up. 
Then don’t let your girl angels go to his confes¬ 
sion. If he has to confess females of any kind, 
give him Mary Magdalene and Saint Anastasia. 
They’ve had some experience with holy fathers 
and may be able to protect themselves, or maybe 
they’re so old by now they wouldn’t be no temp¬ 
tation to no priest. 

P. S. Maw give Paw a dreadful jawing last 
night and told him to look for another place to 
sponge, she’s done with him. Paw told Maw 
she wuz turning into a Suffragette and it wuz a 
mortal sin to be one of them things. He said 
Father Roux told him so and said a woman’s 


90 Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 

place wuz at the tub and the man wuz the head 
of the family. Maw told Paw if he didn’t move 
on the head of the Rooney family would be 
busted before the next five minutes. Maw’s 
been keeping an account of indulgences and she 
says Paddy and Nora has been celebrating in 
heaven for a week as near as she can get at it. 
If you see the Rooneys—you’ll know Nora by 
having one eye bigger than the other and a mole 
on her left leg and Paddy’ll be holding to her— 
tell them we send love and would have starved 
on all summer rather than left them in Purga¬ 
tory. Poor things! 


CHAPTER XII 
Aggie and His Riverance Mix 
Saint Peter 

Vicar of Christ (ex.): 

The last time Father Roux called on us 
Rooneys there wuz fireworks to pay. 

Father Roux hadn’t never got Aggie out of his 
mind and wuz still hankering to be her spiritual 
advisor and tell her about it in the confessional 
box and when he seen her out with Big Blue 
his desire to protect Aggie got the better of him 
and he called on Maw. 

“Mrs. Rooney” says he, “Fve come again to 
talk to you about that girl of yourn. She’s a 
virtuous and lovely young woman what’s going 
to be ruined unless something’s done. I have 
been thinking of her case prayerfully and I 
would suggest putting her in the House of the 
Good Shepherd for a time of training and then 
letting her have a vocation—holy orders. 

“Aggie’s getting’ along fairly dacent,” says 
Maw. 

“How little you know of the world, my good 
daughter, and its wicked ways and snares for 


91 


92 Mikey's Letters to Saint Peter 

young girls. Who is this big policeman? Is he 
a True Son of the Church?” 

“I don’t know,” says Maw, “but Aggie she 
knows.” 

“That’s it. You don’t know. Well, I’ll tell 
you, he aint keeping company with your Aggie 
for no good and you better put her in the House 
of the Good Shepherd or some other safe insti¬ 
tution of Mother Church before the harm is 
done.” 

I seen Maw was getting scared or riled one. 
I didn’t know which it wuz and before she opened 
her mouth Aggie herself come in. When she 
seen His Rivernce she stopped and stared. Then 
she says to Maw, “What you got that blackguard 
in here for?” 

Father Roux blowed out a little in front and 
Maw looked nervous and whispered, “Aggie— 
Aggie, he’s a howly father!” 

“Howly nothing!” said Aggie turning up her 
nose, “holy nothing! What’s the booze drinking 
faker doing here again!” 

“Now, darlin’,” says Maw gentle like, “don’t 
fly to pieces and get cuttin’ up. He’s bin thinkin’ 
about you, he has, darlin,’ and he’s deciding you 
need a vocation.” 

“Vocation? And aint it vocation enough to 


Mi key ’s Letters to Saint Peter 93 

earn my living like an honest woman and help a 
bit with the kids and the rent? What else would 
he have me do?” 

“He says—now don’t fly up, darlin’, and cut up 
none—he says you’re about to be led asthray and 
he’ll git you a nice aisy job in one of thim Houses 
of the Good Shepherd.” 

“One of them jails what does swet house 
work? None of that for me, for wasn’t it Katy 
Barnett that was in one of them jails for six 
years? Fifteen she was when her mother died 
and they took her to the H. 0. G. S. She wanted 
to get out, poor thing, but she never did until she 
was eighteen and over. And then with one dress 
to her back and an old coat that come from the 
charity box. And all that time she was making 
overalls and shirts. If its to jail I want to go 
I’ll pick me one where cops can look in once in a 
while to see if I’m dead or alive and not one of 
these here what nobody sees the inside of but 
fakirs like this here one. So now,” says Aggie 
to His Riverence, “if you’ve had your say, you’ve 
had your answer and your company’s not needed 
no more.” 

“Disrespect! Impudence! Sacrilege to thus 
address a priest of the True Church,” says Fa¬ 
ther Roux making a step toward Aggie. 


94 Mi key's Letters to Saint Peter 


Then she got mad. A red spot come flashing 
onto her cheek and her eyes got fiery. 

“Don’t you touch me!” ste yelled. “Have you 
forgotten what I did for you at confessional?” 

Then the Holy Father got mad. “Wretched 
girl!” he said choking like. “Wretched girl! 
How dare you mention it! How dare you?” 

“Keep your distance” says Aggie. “I dare 
mention it. And more I dare do it again only 
next time I’ll scratch the snakey eyes out of 
you! You evil beast! Blowing your stinking 
breath in my face and trying to force your 
drunken love-making on a girl what come in to 
get her sins forgiven!” 

“The Saints and holy angels!” Maw cried. 
“What terrible thing is this yer tellin’? What 
hev ye bin doing’ to the howly father?” 

“I slapped his face, I did, and ’twas a small 
part of what he was deserving, the dirty devil.” 

“Stop! Silence!” shouted Father Roux. “I 
am a priest of the Holy Catholic Church.” 

“And does priests of the Holy Catholic Church 
take it upon themselves to ask questions thet’s 
none of their business to respectable girls? Is 
it a part of their business to speak of such things 
as no decent man speaks of? Is it a part of 
their business to try to ruin the character of an 


Mikey's Letters to Saint Peter 95 


honest girl when she comes into the confessional 
to get her sins forgiven? If this here is what 
priests is at in the confessional they’re a bad lot 
and the cops should break up their rotten busi¬ 
ness. Now stay where you are—don’t come no 
nearer to me. You got your dirty hands on me 
in confessional you did, but I didn’t know you 
then. I know you now, you sneaking devil in 
long-tailed coat and cross. But you didn’t do 
what you was trying to—did you ? And I didn’t 
have a fair show then. Next time—if ye try it 
again, I’ll clean you up till you won’t know 
what’s gone with you—you skunk!” 

“Enough, apostate!” he said hoarsely. “By 
this sacred emblem of my authority I’ll put a 
curse upon you,” and he held out his cross. 

Quick as a cat Aggie grabbed up the broom 
and stood holding it at him. “And by this here 
emblem,” she says, “I’ll put worse than a curse 
on you. I’ll black your eye and uncouple your 
spine and dint your bull-head, you holy devil of 
a father!” 

For a minute Aggie and His Riverence 
stood there looking like two cats ready for wool¬ 
pulling. While they wuz standing Big Blue come 
up the stairs and stopped in the door. 

“What’s this?” he says, surprised like. 


96 Mi key’s Letters to Saint Peter 

“Its a holy father fixing to put a curse on me 
because I slapped him till he saw stars when he 
tried to get fresh with me in confessional.” 

“But he’s a priest!” says Big Blue. 

“You mean he looks like a priest. What he is 
underneath the cover of his long-tailed coats and 
petticoats you don’t know but I know. I’ve 
been in the confessional with him. Take it from 
Aggie, Blue dear, he looks like a he-angel—may¬ 
be, but looks is deceiving. And not content with 
the answer I’ve already give him he’s come but¬ 
ting in here saying I ought to be put in an insti¬ 
tution and you and me fixing to marry next 
month.” 

“Marry!” exclaimed Father Roux. “Marry 
next month! It will take many months of pen¬ 
ance to get you ready for the holy sacrament of 
matrimony. And until then there can be no mar¬ 
riage.” 

“Ah, come now,” says Aggie. “Do you think 
you’re the only pebble on the beach ? There are 
others.” 

“But there is no priest of the Holy Church 
anywhere who will give you the sacrament of 
matrimony until your sin of—your terrible sin 
of insulting a priest has been atoned.” 

“Don’t let it worry you” says Aggie. “There’s 


Mikky’s Letters to Saint Peter 97 

a Justice around the block that can tie the knot 
as tight as any priest can do.” 

“A Justice?” Father Roux exclaimed. “A 
Justice cannot marry you. There is no marriage 
outside of the Roman Catholic Church. And if 
you go through any other so-called marriage— 
it is not marriage. It cannot be. If you sir,” 
and he turned to Big Blue, “if you marry this 
bad and wretched girl outside the Holy Catholic 
Church your marriage will be no marriage. She 
will be no more than a common woman of the 
street and your children will be bastards.” 

When Maw heard this last word she gave a 
dreadful scream and said the word over two or 
three times and then wilted into a chair. 

“Stop!” says Big Blue. “You’re wearing the 
cloth and I don’t want no scene here. But you’ve 
said enough. You move on now or I’ll be com¬ 
pelled to run you in for disturbing the peace— 
move on. This here’s America we’re in. You’re 
mixed up. You think you’re in South America 
or Mexico or living back in the dark ages. You 
priests are all right in your place, but don’t try 
to run our civil affairs. Keep to your religion.” 

“So we do keep to religion. Matrimony is a 
holy sacrament and there is no marriage out¬ 
side the Roman Catholic Church and only curses 


98 Miket’s Letters to Saint Peter 

can come upon those that defy Church author¬ 
ity—only courses,” and His Riverence raised his 
cross and got ready again to say his curse. 

“Move on,” says Big Blue touching him on the 
shoulder with his big club. 

“Say, Bluey darlin’,” says Aggie, putting her 
arms around him, “Let the holy devil of a father 
say his curse. It’s in his system and he’s not 
going to be comfortable no more till its out.” 
And to His Riverence she says, “Go on with your 
curses. Curses, like chickens, get home to roost. 
Nobody here’s afraid of them.” 

For a minute Aggie stood with her arms 
around Big Blue. They wuz standing in front 
of His Riverence waiting to get cursed. Then 
Big Blue busted out laughing fit to kill and His 
Riverence went off down stairs. I suppose he 
give us our cursing when he got out in front of 
the house. 

When he wuz gone and Big Blue had quieted 
down he said, “Mrs. Rooney, I dropped in to tell 
you I’m wanting to marry your little Aggie 
Rooney. We’ve got us a nice little flat picked 
out and my income’s enough so’s I can have a 
bit left over to help you and the kids. But 
there’s conditions. Don’t have these priests on 
your string. You don’t need them in your busi- 


Mikey’s Letters to Saint Peter 99 

ness. You’re working hard enough for your¬ 
self and the little ones without taking care of 
them. Let them hustle for themselves. Then 
about Mikey, Mikey’s got the making of a man 
in him. Put him back in Free School. Free 
School’s the place for Mikey.” 

Maw said she wuz willing, especially since 
Paddy and Nora is out of Purgatory. So I’m 
going back to study about George Washington 
and the Stars and Stripes is going back where 
St. Joseph has been standing. He’s cracked any¬ 
way.” 



























































































































































































































































































































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